A Warm Beach Experience

For the last several years, we have spent the last week of the year on the beach on the 'Space Coast' near Indialantic Florida...


We began almost every morning, on the beach watching the sun rise above the ocean waves...

The first day when we arrived, the beach was mostly deserted as a 'red tide' had arrived on the beach which is caused by a toxic algae bloom that will leave your eyes watering and everybody coughing...



I understand that the red tide had been around for the previous couple of months and the only good solution is to stay indoors or head inland.  We were lucky the tide moved on and we only had one day of it...  We had often heard of the 'red tide' yet had never experienced it until this year.  This was worse than ragweed and hay fever in the midwest. There were massive fish kills in the area near Cocoa Beach and you might guess this was not good for fishing...  




Sharon had just gotten a very important sale for her book and received a very positive review of her new book...

Watching the waves roll in and the birds flying along them is a very relaxing way to start the day...




Days were mostly sunny and warm... some afternoons in the 80's, mostly in the 70's and then there was a cold front that brought a couple of days barely reaching 60 degrees with a cold 25 mile per hour north wind that seemed very cool...  Even that beats frigid single digits like in Kansas this time of year ...



Our first adventure led us to the Melbourne Beach city pier on the Indian river to catch some bait.

Well it turned out to be a big 8 foot net that I had not practiced throwing for a year...
so, in addition to very few and far between small Mullet fish around and my poor form, we were not overly successful...




This little bird followed us along the pier hoping that we would catch him some dinner.


I did finally catch one poor little fish shortly after I threw the net along with the rope that was supposed to be connected around my wrist into the river... I had to go in wading  to retrieve my net...




So, while I was trying to get the little minnow untangled from the net... the sucker stabbed me in the finger with a sharp fin.  YOW, the wicked little sucker drew blood and my finger felt bad, somewhere between  pain and numbness for about an hour after that...





On a couple of warm afternoons I took my inflatable Kayak out to the Banana river to explore and paddle around with the Dolphins...











Some of the houses along the river were almost unbelievably large...













This is the southern most tip of Merrit island where the Banana River and the Indian River merge and form a large lake, lagoon, or inland waterway that continues on many miles to the south... it connects with the Atlantic Ocean at Sebastian Inlet...



These were rather calm waters with speed zone areas to protect the Manatees.  I would usually crop this photo more but I really like the way the ripples on the water came out in this shot... looks like an interesting wood grain pattern.




All along the area are canals and narrow inlets surrounded by houses and condominiums.  Almost everyone has a dock and a boat in their back yard...

This big boat had lighted pelicans, palm trees, and was covered stem to stern with Christmas lights for the season.






Surf fishing was a little slow.  We were able to rake up some sand fleas on the beach for bait.  

With frozen shrimp and cut bait we had more than enough bait.  We were lucky to catch a nice 'Blue' that seemed big enough for our next adventure...







After inflating the Kayak, it was time to get out my shark pole... It's a 9  Penn Senator that I got a long time ago on my quest to catch a monster shark...

I hooked up a size 10 hook with 30 feet of stainless steel wire.  I hooked the bait fish up and placed it in a 5 gallon plastic bucket along with the steel leader, some weights, and some chum.



I placed the bucket behind my inflated Kayak seat and headed for the ocean...

It was the day before new years eve... the waves were calmer... instead of 4 to 6 foot swells, we had 2 to 4 foot waves.

On my first attempt, the waves tipped my boat and everything went flying...

(Note: this was not near as dangerous or as funny as last time I tried this...  Ask me about the little rubber raft... ha ha ha...)



After picking  the paddle and the seat from the surf, I headed out again.  With a little help from a friend I got past the breakers and headed out to sea..
Something that never really occurred to me was that if you have 4 foot waves on the beach that there would be 4 foot swells farther out away from the beach.  


I had assistants on shore watching the line slowly roll out of the reel as I paddled off shore.

We took the line out 250 to 300 yards from shore when I dumped the contents of the bucket and headed back in...

We had devised hand signals to communicate things like when we were about out of line and of course, the one arm sweep to signal 'reel me in' in case of a mishap...


 but when I got out there beyond the roar of the waves crashing on the beach, the people where small specks on the beach and communication was out of the question. Maybe I should try a cell phone?

When I returned to the beach the line had moved way off to the side. Darn,  I thought I probably should use more weight next time as the current must have pulled my line off to the side.  I reeled in the line as I moved down the beach to straighten out the line.  I reset the pole in the pvc plastic pipe, pole holder, after straightening out the line.  Then again the line was swept to the side and I had to move further down the beach.  I figured it would be a short evening of fishing as my bait was washing in to shore...
 


About a half a mile down the beach from our original location, my line came to an end...




On the beach,  
a nice sand shark








Finally after a many year quest the shark was captured.  We barbecued it the next day.  Everyone said it was the best...

Rest assured my fellow swimmers, your toes are now a little bit safer as you play in the surf.

However, beware! the really big one is still out there and you bet, I  am ready to make plans to come back and get him...





Unfortunately that really sad day arrived when it was time to take the old potatoe chips and bread out to feed the sea gulls.

We packed up our beach toys and headed back to Kansas, hoping to return to a wonderful place beside the sea...